


Five Times Rose Tyler Missed Christmas

by jeeno2



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Christmas, Dimension-Hopping Rose, Episode: s01e03 The Unquiet Dead, Episode: s01e14 The Christmas Invasion, F/M, Family, Fluff, Pete's World, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-09
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-09-07 12:04:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8800150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeno2/pseuds/jeeno2
Summary: He makes it up to her eventually.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a version of this story last year, but was unhappy with portions of it so I took it down. I've since heavily edited it and am now reposting it. Happy Holidays. :)

**One**

When Pete finally makes it back to the flat he breathes out a sigh of relief.

He can’t remember the last time he’s been so happy to be indoors.  Even if in this case, indoors is just the inside of their cramped little flat.  

It’s _really_ bloody cold out there, and their fake fireplace has never looked so inviting.

London hasn’t gotten this much snow in years.  When he went out to shovel an hour ago he’d been all out of practice, needing twice as much time to do the job as he’d have needed when he was a boy up north.  To make matters worse, he’d forgotten to take along his sodding gloves.  And he didn’t want to bother Jackie by asking her to bring them down.

Small wonder he didn’t get frostbite.

After hanging up his coat and hat he briefly rubs his hands together to warm them.  As he does it he looks over at his wife, napping on the sofa in front of the fireplace and their little Christmas tree. She looks uncomfortable, lying there with her feet propped up on the armrest.  Then again, she’s always uncomfortable these days.

He crosses over to her in three strides. He gingerly lifts her feet up and then rests them on his lap as he sits, doing his best not to wake her.

The doctor originally thought the baby’d be here by now.  But due dates, he’d told them yesterday, aren’t an exact science.  According to him their daughter’s in no  hurry to get here.

Jackie’s inconsolable.  With a December 18th due date she’d thought they’d be spending Christmas a family of three.  “What are we going to do with this?” she’d asked tearfully, just before he’d gone to do the shoveling, clutching Rose’s tiny pink stocking in her hands.  

Pete looks down at his sleeping wife and puts his hand on her child-swollen belly.  As if she knows her Daddy is right there little Rose kicks at his hand once, twice, and then a third time, before settling down and joining her mummy in some well-deserved rest.

He smiles at them, his heart so full of tenderness it feels fit to burst.

“I’ll make it up to you next Christmas, Rosie.  Once you’re properly here,” he promises his daughter earnestly.  “Just you wait.”

* * *

 

**Two**

They’re sitting across from each other in the TARDIS kitchen, trying to warm themselves over piping mugs of cocoa, before Rose is ready to talk about it.

“She gave her life to save us, Doctor.”  These simple words sounded heartfelt and important in her head but feel inadequate when she says them out loud.  Rose can’t help but cringe at her idiocy.

In truth, Gwen was probably the bravest person she’s ever met.  She made the ultimate sacrifice, and history won’t remember her at all.  She certainly deserves a better eulogy than the one Rose just gave her.

She keeps her eyes fixed firmly on the wispy spirals of steam rising from her cocoa to avoid looking at the Doctor.  If he has anything to say about Gwen, or what happened tonight, he keeps it to himself.  Instead, he takes her hand in his.  Just like he did when they watched the Earth explode, and just like he did earlier tonight while they hid from the Gelth. He twines their fingers together and gives her hand a gentle squeeze.

His hand is surprisingly soft, and cool to the touch for reasons Rose suspects have nothing to do with it being Cardiff in December.

“She did give her life,” the Doctor eventually agrees.  His tone is far kinder than she’s come to expect from him.  He runs the pad of his thumb across the back of her hand, so gently Rose wonders if he thinks she might break.  Rose’s eyes are drawn to the rhythmic, circular pattern he draws on her skin with his thumb, and she pulls her bottom lip between her teeth before she realizes she’s done it.

“She was so brave,” Rose adds.  She chances a glance up at the Doctor’s face.  He’s not looking at his mug of hot chocolate, or at the back of Rose’s hand, but at her face.  His eyes are blue and unwavering, and startlingly bright.  “I think Gwen was the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

The Doctor gives a small shrug.

“She was brave,” the Doctor agrees.  “Very brave.  But lots of people are brave, Rose.”

The way he says it, his eyes never leaving her face, sends an odd sort of tingle down her spine.  She averts her eyes and picks up her mug with her free hand just for something to do with it.

She notices for the first time that there’s a hint of peppermint mixed in with the chocolate.  It reminds Rose, suddenly, that it’s Christmas.

Small wonder she’s forgotten the date, really.  She’s learned it’s shockingly easy to lose track of things like holidays on the TARDIS.  Especially with how frequently they seem to run into trouble.

As Rose nurses her drink, the Doctor’s hand still in hers, she wonders, idly, if Charles Dickens made it home to his family after all.

* * *

 

**Three**

Given everything that’s happened over the last twenty-four hours, Jackie getting such a nice dinner together for Christmas was no small feat.

Rose knows that.

And so she desperately hopes her mum won’t notice how unable she is to focus on the decorations, on the food – on anything, really, other than the man sitting across the table from her in a rumpled pinstriped suit.

The Doctor had wanted to get her home for Christmas, but it hasn’t felt like Christmas at all.  Small wonder, really.  Between him going and changing his face, to his lying there comatose in her old bedroom, unresponsive to everyone and everything -- and then their needing to save the planet from the Sycorax -- it’s taken all of Rose’s energy just to keep her head on.

And now here they are, sitting in her mum’s flat.  The Doctor (and he is the proper Doctor; she knows that now) is wearing his new face and a toothy grin, beaming at her as though she hung the moon.  She’s so distracted by his presence she isn’t certain she’d be able to say what day today was if Mum asked her, no matter how delicious the turkey and cranberry relish are.

Towards the end of the meal the Doctor pulls a Christmas cracker, and then everyone is clapping, laughing, happy.  Like they weren’t all just nearly killed in a spaceship miles above Earth.  They’re all wearing tissue paper crowns, and he looks up at her, his new face full of so much genuine wonder she has to dig her fingernails into her palm to resist the urge to kiss him.

“This isn’t actually snow,” he says quietly, after dinner, as they file out into the courtyard, his words leaving his mouth in a billowing white plume in the night air.  Or at least she thinks that’s what he says.  She can’t really focus on his actual words, because his tone, and the feel of his warm sweet breath against the sensitive skin of her neck, makes thinking about anything else nearly impossible.

When he tells her he’d love for her to come with him she decides, right then, that she will never leave his side.

* * *

 

**Four**

The calendar on the wall marks the passage of time without him.  

She keeps a bright red magic marker in her top desk drawer for the sole purpose of drawing a big red _X_ through each day after she’s survived it.  She thinks of it as a proactive way to measure progress.  A way to remind herself she’s not giving up.  That she won’t ever give up.  

(The marker has crossed off so many days it’s nearly out of ink.  But Rose refuses to replace it.  Replacing it would force her to think about how long she’s been trapped here, and she won’t do that.  Not now, not when she’s so close to getting the cannon to work.)

Her mum left a message on her mobile an hour ago.  She’d begged Rose not to work too late tonight.  It’s the baby’s first Christmas. The tree’s all done up in lights.  They got him a toy zeppelin.  She and Pete don’t want her to miss out on the fun.

She turns off her mobile when the first of what she knows will be a string of texts from her mum – begging her to take a break; to come home – pops up on the screen.  She opens the drawer where she keeps the red marker and chucks the phone inside before slamming it shut.

_(And I suppose, if it’s my last chance to say it… Rose Tyler, –)_

Without warning, and for the thousandth time since she lost him, the Doctor’s image on the beach and the words he left unsaid flash through her mind.  Rose buries her head into her arms and cries until the tears run dry.  An indulgence she rarely allows herself.

She rips open her desk drawer and grabs her phone.  Types a hasty message to her mum, letting her know she’s very sorry but she just can’t get away from work tonight.

She’s no use to anyone like this.  She’s in no mood to celebrate anything at all.  And Tony will have a lifetime of other Christmases.

* * *

 

**Five**

The Doctor opens their bedroom door just wide enough for him to poke his head inside.

Rose is still in there, lying in bed.  There’s a fire going downstairs so the flat is very warm, but Rose has the covers pulled all the way up to her chin nonetheless.

That’s not a good sign, he realizes, frowning.  The Doctor decides he shouldn’t wake her and turns to leave.  

But she isn’t sleeping.

“Come in,” she says.  Her voice is hoarse, and barely above a whisper.    

The Doctor throws the door open wide and is at her side a moment later.  He crouches down next to their bed and takes her hand in his.  Her hand is cold, and clammy, and yet far too warm all at once, which tells him her fever still hasn’t broken.

“Hey,” he says after a long moment, trying to tamp down his worry and disappointment.  He lifts his free hand and places it on her forehead, testing.  Rose whimpers a little at his touch, and he frowns, stomach sinking, because whimpering definitely means she’s too sick for what he’s got planned.

“I’m alright, Doctor,” Rose says, trying to reassure him.   

The Doctor shakes his head.  “No, Rose.  You’re not alright.”

She tries to disagree with him, but it just sets off a fit of coughing that causes her to flop back down on her pillows.

“’s just the flu, Doctor.  Half of Torchwood’s come down with it this winter.  It’ll pass in a few days. Promise.”  She coughs wretchedly into her free hand, and the Doctor closes his eyes, wishing there were something, anything he could do to make her feel better.  “I just need to rest for a bit.”

“It isn’t fair,” he mutters. 

Rose turns her head to look at him.  Her eyes are feverishly bright.  “What isn’t fair?”

“I decorated the tree, Rose,” he whines.  “I hung mistletoe.  I cooked.  I cleaned.  Your parents and Tony are coming over and everything.”  He knows he must sound pitiful right now.  But he finally has her back – in his arms; in their bed.  And this is the first Christmas they’ve ever had together where neither they nor anybody else they knew was in mortal peril.

He’s been looking forward to sharing this human tradition with her for what feels like centuries. He’s heartbroken that she’s going to miss it all because of something as pedestrian as the flu.

Smiling at him in sympathy, she caresses his cheek with the back of her hand.  

“I’ll be better soon,” she says again.  “In the meantime, save me a slice of pie?”

Pleased that she still has enough of an appetite to want pie, he smiles at her before pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead.

“Okay,” he agrees, whispering the word against her skin.  “I promise.”

\-----

In the end, after everyone’s gone home, he brings her two slices.

They eat them in bed, free hands clasped together, her head resting on his chest and his fingertips tracing lazy circles on her arm.

“This is the only present I wanted anyway,” Rose murmurs against his cheek before falling asleep.

He stays awake for hours afterwards, just watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest, as he thanks the universe, once again, for small miracles.


End file.
